Fallout: The Commonwealth
by Iron Aquilifer
Summary: Nate Green is a wastelander, one of thousands surviving in the desolate remains of Earth following the Great War of the 23rd of October, 2077. Taking a ship to the Commonwealth, a land of mystery and wonder, Nate is on a mission of discovery. Urged on by a mysterious note, he intends to find the infamous Sanctuary and with it, answers. Highly AU retelling of Fallout 4.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

His mind dreamed. Real dreams, as real as reality itself. He dreamed of what is. Of what was. A world on the brink, balanced on a needle. It was a world of strife, domestic and foreign. He saw a crowd, banners angry and red held high. They were chanting, snarling, roaring; a beast with a thousand mouths. He saw hulking behemoths barring their way, soldiers of contempt and blue. He heard the jeers and the booming call to disperse. The beast refused to submit, to tuck tail and cast off into the gloom of irrelevance.

Gunfire. A heavy heartbeat as violent flame spat out righteous injustice. There were bodies. Bits of bodies. Limbs torn from sudden corpses. _One_ , he counted though he had no eyes to see, _two_ , _three_... _ten_. Ten became twenty in a heartbeat. Twenty became fifty, and fifty a hundred. The beast wailed. People wailed. Mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Sisters and brothers. They convulsed, vomiting blood and lung and spine.

Silence. A dead, weighty silence.

Shadows shifted like water. Reforming. Forgetting. The same dream? Different? There was a body. His body. A body like his. He was running, fleeing. The world was silent. Silent save for the klaxon, a mournful siren blaring louder and louder as its song covered the world in sorrow. People blurred past him. Dogs and trees and houses were like mist all about him. The klaxon would not quiet, no matter how far he ran, nor how fast. He reached a hill, an outcrop of buildings sat against its flank, like mushrooms sprouting from a dark pond. Soldiers ushered him forward, pointing towards a hole in the earth, a maw wide and dark and cold. The klaxon blared loud and long. He stumbled, an arm reaching out to steady him. He was there, inside the great maw, illuminated in a stark, sterile white. Behind him the great steel door rolled into place. Safety, a voice seemed to murmur, confused. The klaxon spluttered, casting a final saddening note.

There was screaming, beyond the steel. Screaming a torrent of emotion that made mere words meaningless. Screaming for help. Screaming for the white.

Screaming. Screaming. Silence.

There was a voice, words so distant that they could barely pierce the gloom of the darkness. No, not words. Nothing so complex could exist in the black recesses of his mind. Sounds, simple emotion rumbling from beyond the shadows. Louder and louder the sound rose, the emotion reaching a colourless crescendo that struck him with as much force as a hammer blow.

Then finally… light.

He eyes peeled open, the gummy glue breaking to reveal a world of colour. Clouds of cotton danced over water blue and green and black, a churning of life's vitality that stretched out far beyond what a mortal eye could ever see. Beyond the rolling waves sat a thick rainbow line, dividing ocean and sky with certainty of a zealot. _Land_ , he mind seemed to say in reference to the rainbow. It was a wonderous riot of greens and browns and greys, unmoved by the brilliance of its own colour.

It took him a moment to separate the colours, to see the shapes which broke them apart. He saw spires. _No_ , his thoughts declared, the _spires_. They were jewels all, ruby and amethyst and emerald sparkling under a golden sun. Up and up they stretched, fingers of wealth reaching towards the sky and space and heaven.

He sighed, breathless at the sight. At last, he had made it.

"So you finally woke," a woman's voice barked, familiar in its dry rasp. "Will be 'nother twen'y minute or there 'bout," she announced to an answering cheer from the waves. She was a tall, stocky woman, never to be seen with a smile and never to be seen without a hand grasping the grip of her pistol. "Abbey," the woman had told him to call her. He hadn't ever done so, instead referring to her equally as "Captain" and "Bitch". She was an honest seaswoman with a nose for rooting out dangers no sailor had a right to know, but by god had she made him pay for his fare with hard graft.

The jewelled fingers grew as the minutes counted down, becoming spears and then old oaks in turn, rising like mountains to misty heights. For a moment Nate could only look at them in wonder. A hundred years had passed already, if you were to trust the tales of the zombies. Four generations had grown up and died in the time since the sun's power had been harnessed to scourge the earth clean. Yet still the symbols of humanity's greatness stood, proud sentinels against the ravaging blue of the universe that would forget them. It seemed to be a message of some description, though he had no time or mind to work it out.

"We're omin' up on the quay," the captain announced, as if unhappy that she was to lose her one-time slave. "Best get your gear 'gether. Knowin' was become of the 'wealth, you're gonna need that pis'ol o' yours."

He frowned. That wasn't what he had been told was the case, and his reports were the closest to reputable as could be found in the wastes. He had staked his life on them before, more times than he would normally dare to admit. "I was told that the Commonwealth was the safest place this side of the Pitt."

Abbey gave that a soft snort, as if she had heard the same claim a hundred times already that day. Though from what he had gleaned from her infrequent tales his one-time master had never struck out across land beyond the sight of the ocean blue. At least not since she had been a wide-eyed girl in the arms of steady parents. If the lines about her eyes were anything to be going by, that was a long time past.

"Maybe in D'amond Ci'y, where the militia can keep you safe. Gunshop to the south is fine if you got the cards to pay for protection. Not much left to scav from the ruins of Boss so the rubble is safe enough from people. Mos'ly, though ah heard some talk o' a new gang makin' their claims. But where the trees can grow? Out there you can't find a place to set up home where the raiders or bugs won't get you. Bodysnatchers as well, though you'll be 'ard pressed t' tell what it was tha' got you when you dead. And if it's no one of them, you'll get snapped by the dragons."

Nate responded with silent acceptance. A dozen questions seemed to line themselves up, waiting their turn to be asked. However the heavy tang of salt seemed to clog up his tongue, enough to kill the words in infancy. Her answers are going to be as useful as drinking saltwater, he decided, perhaps unfairly. There was nothing to hold him from getting his answers from the locals, who endured their land with as much stamina as the captain used to keep to sea. Besides, she was as much a foreigner as he was, even if her ship came to dock on the coastline of the 'wealth every season.

Despite his misgivings, curiosity demanded at least the illusion of satisfaction. "Anything I need to know about the towns?"

"D'amond Ci'y has a new mayor from what 'av heard," Abbey finally muttered as she pulled the boat into the wide open arms of the bay. Her eyes refused to settle, scanning the shorelines with as much scrutiny as that of the buffering waves under them. They paused on a shadowy figure, training in on the black smudge for a moment before dismissing the sight for a threat too negibile to be worth her time. "Scrubbed the place clean from top to bottom. Even kicked out the muties that 'fected the place. A fair good job ah heard 'em say he did. The muties are hol' up in Goo'neighba' now, unable to go anywhere else. Down in Gunshop they have started a bug hunting competition, and are wanting the traders to pay for it."

He stored away the information with a sigh. Town politics were not really his problem. Not yet at least. And even if they were, he had no interest in taking a stand for or against the lives of some mutants. Like any child, he had grown to fear the Shepherd and his army of reavers. And as for the wildlife, it was almost certainly a good thing that they were getting culled. Would mean he would have to only be wary of people.

"There any other towns out there?" Nate inquired. "Someplace out further west?" Settling into a town built among the skeletons of the old city was not ideal to his thinking. And he had a letter that promised something more.

"There is two that I know of," she allowed. "Le Town is where them Minutemen thugs hangout. They got some factory set up so if you know how machines work, they can pay you."

"And the other town?"

"San'uary." He almost flinched at the venom in her voice. "They call it San'uary, but I ain't heard of anyone being safe there. Guns on the wall shoot at anyone no invited and they got themsel's patrols huntin' down anyone who sets up shop too near 'em. People still try though, since the traders claim that they got ever'thin', even some weapon to keep the dragons at bay. A life worth killin' for, though I don't see how livin' behind a wall tha'd sooner shoot at them for nothin' is good."

 _Sounds like a vault_ , Nate reasoned. There had to be at least one about for all the people who lived in the Commonwealth, and it wasn't like anyone else had that sort of firepower without owning everything from horizon to horizon. "How does one get invited?"

"You looking to get in on their action?"

They hadn't spoken of his desire to come to the Commonwealth, no more than they had discussed his life choices from infancy to adulthood. Their histories, their futures, were left as untold stories for the price of a contented cruise. That was the way most people found a contentment out in the wastes. He wasn't going to start divulging into what brought him here, especially now that they had already dared the open water journey. No, he would hold onto that freedom at least. The captain could see that, though whether or not she was happy with it now was another matter. A matter that didn't concern Nate.

"If I can't farm, I'll take a soft bed if the price is not too dear."

"I'd tell you t' stay 'way, but I take it you wouldn't listen."

She was a good judge of character or, more likely, educated enough to add one and two together to make three. Yet it was not her fight, to stop him from plunging into the unknown. Perhaps if he had proven himself at navigation then she'd have offered him a job that didn't involve splitting the skin from his fingers. Or maybe she knew what it was that drove him from the moment he set foot onto her tub, seeing the reasons with her ocean eyes as surely as she spotted the towers looming tall and majestic above them.

"You know the best way there?" He felt weird asking, a child revealing they had indeed taken from the store without permission. Though, giving the older woman a look, he might have a reason to fear admitting that he had a real chance of wanting to make a go at forgoing her advice and signing up with Sanctuary's inhabitants. There was always the allure of payment holding someone's convictions better than any sort of moral code towards helping a stranger, especially when that code conflicted with personal distaste for what was being asked of them. Hell's fire, he couldn't find it in him to feel angry if she would have preferred to send him straight into the arms of a slaver. Better that than betraying her own ill-conscience of allowing someone join up with such a settlement. That was a conflict everyone had, at one time or another in their life. It was as close to a law of the land as might making right.

Instead of whatever harmful deceit she could have conjured up, however, she simply shook her head. "Fa' west o' D'amon Ci'y is all I know. Ne'ver had a reason to go that fa' from miship."

That sounded true enough to his ears. He could not imagine her wanting to leave the smell of salt for any reason, let alone to throw herself at the walls of some utopia that wanted nothing of her. The grey ocean had to be the only thing left to her she could trust enough to love. Water, and polluted salt water at that. Or maybe the rumours of Sanctuary just scared her that badly.

"Anything I need to know about this harbour?" he said, drawing the conversation to more immediate concerns. The skeletons of the old world were beginning to take stark form before them, and the soft murmur of life drifted out of the coloured lands towards them.

"The locals call it Long Landing, as if they have the only plank o' wood in the 'wealth. Harbourmasters run the show, keepin' the peace and dealin' wi' anyone tha'll try and steal a ship from their betters. Traders come from the other towns, and the fisherfolk can make good money on their catches. Can't say the same is true of the other places I put into. As good a place a' any other to stay, if you have the want of a peaceful life."

Was than an invite? Nate thought he saw her head twitch in his direction, but it could have just as easily have been the fault of the rocking of the boat. A life of peace and contentment, merrily fishing and going course of voice trading supplies from ships originating up and down the coast. It sounded like a lie. There was no peace in the world, not for someone who wanted to see it all. Or for someone who wanted a comfortable life. No, there was no contentment to be had for as long as he did not look upon this utopia of Sanctuary, or the towns in between. And being happy with a life of simplicity did not carry with it the sort of petty merriment that he could accept.

Her hand tightened against the grip of her pistol. "We here."

If the jeweled towers were fingers, then the quay was a thumb. Short, far, and utterly without charm, the landing was swarming with sailing vessels. There were rusted tubs unfit for scrap and brightly-painted yachts with sails as wide as they were patched. He could even see a boat made of naked wood, a dozen slender legs dipping into the water in place of an engine.

"I didn't expect it to be this busy," Nate admitted as Abbey pulled her metal deathtrap into the general melee of the docks.

"Used t' be better, if you would believe. Some folk been talkin' o' a whale that hungers for human flesh. Drove the fisherfolk back t' shore quick enough. And with them bodysnatchers about, there is business in gettin' people away."

Shaking his head at the tale, the newcomer turned to collect his backpack. He had food and weapons enough for several days at least, a small treasure to the eyes of a raider who ate only what could not be used to beat a person to death. All the worldly possessions left to him, barely enough to fill a single crate, had been spent for his trip. But perhaps that was all about to change. The Commonwealth was a beacon for all who would have a new life, a land apart from the rest of the wasteland. At the bottom of his backpack, hidden beneath a flap, rested a small grey box. Stuck to its face sat a well-read note. It was a promise, to him and him alone.

"You are gonna be needin' some cards," the woman declared, in a tone that sounded as if she had just found out he had been living off her ship's mold this entire trip. Pulling out what looked like a deck of playing cards, she counted them off with a soft murmuring.

Nate looked at her for a moment, feeling the twin urges of curiosity of what she was about and drinking in more of his first sight of the Commonwealth becoming real before his eyes. "What cards?" he finally asked.

"D'amon Ci'y Players," she informed him, having the good grace to spare him from a withering look. "They got tha' prin'in' press o' theirs up and runnin' and the whole 'wealth is hungry for them. Says you can trade them in for iron, the good stuff tha' no rus'ed. Why anyone would want that instead o' food and bullets I don't know but it's the only thin' the traders will take around here. So, it's the only thin' everyone wants. Here's twenty. They're all worth the same, though some will pay more if the faces are different. Collectors."

He accepted the offering, reaching into his bag to present a handful of bullets for the exchange. It was a strange feeling, finding himself not trying to gauge whether or not this display of generosity was a trick. At the least, she had brought him here in one piece; that had to count for something. If it didn't then they were all in a bad place.

"Keep them bullets, these came wi' your ticket."

"Thanks," he mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty. He would have said more, wanted to say more, but the words died in his mouth. Instead he turned back to wait out the last moments of his voyage in silence.

His watery steed glided into an empty mooring with all the clumsy grace he had come to expect of it, despite the deftness of his host's skill. _Not taking this boat again_ , he promised himself. It would surely be an easy enough oath to keep.

"Well, you were not the worst passenger I had." Abbet turned her eyes away, gazing out over the Landing, waving towards another ship captain. "Make sure t' have a word with someone at the Port Pub. You'll find someone to go to D'amon Ci'y wi' you for a fair price, and any of them questions you got bubbling in you can be answered by them easy enough. And if you do go to Sanc'uary, you'll be needin' some company."

He offered her a smile, one that was the nearest he could manage towards being genuine. "Thanks captain. Goodbye."


	2. Chapter 2

The quay was alive with humanity. Sailors told long tales to whoever would listen, their faces bright with the sun and dusted with salt as they spoke of krakens and mermaids and the horrors only they had seen and had the skill to survive. Children clad in the bulky clothing passed down to them by their parents dragged boxes of half gutted fish from ship to butcher, a wispy trail of vinegar marking their passage. And here and there, a fresh-faced newcomer detached themselves from their ocean-going chariots into the slick ground of the wharf.

An arm brushed his own as he took his first steps on the slick walkway. Nate half turned, hand going for his pistol. There was always someone in a crowd marking out the new arrivals, gauging the risk they posed. He had done it once or twice in his life, when the prospects of the dawn were grey with uncertainty. Law enforcers or not, not everyone could pass up the opportunity to get what didn't belong to them. Not everyone could fill a backpack with their belongings, no more than everyone was contented to a life where they were forced to be happy living with what they had. However the chance of confrontation passed, and with it the stranger. Sighing, he allowed his task to push him forward.

Past the fisherfolk and the vessels, the quay opened up into a proper market, signs of flaking paint announcing sales only a mutie could pass up. He thought he could see one of them in question, bent double beneath a mountain of rags meant to hide its repulsive features. Yet no one seemed to care either way for its presence, dragging their goods from vendor to shack as if nothing bad could come of the company. The vendors sat like shacks of their own, humble benches sitting beside larger warehouses while mounds of crates found any empty space to present their goods towards the customer. The shops stretched out for a while, before ending at what he could only assume were the homes of the residents: blocks of wood and mud and stone and iron draped with stained cloth of a dozen shades of grey.

Dodging the heavy march of what he assumed were a company of Harbourmasters, Nate found himself cutting a path through the shorefront market towards the supposed highlight of the harbour: the Port Pub.

The building would have been a modest thing in a town of greater size, two or three floors of lichen-covered stone and iron struts sitting before the waterfront like a great piece of driftwood. He could spy guards on its roof, rifles reaching out over the gunwall towards targets he could not possibly hope to see. His hand moved of its own accord back towards the holster of his own gun. Just because a danger was out of sight didn't stop it from being a threat, and relying on another was something that was sure to get him killed. It had taken weeks to get here, the small fortune he had amassed over half a lifetime becoming empty air in exchange for food and drink and shelter and passage. He wasn't about to become just another victim now that he had made landfall. Now that he was on the trail.

Inside the Pub, dozens of tables sat patiently for visitors who had yet to arrive. Behind a shimmering haze he could barely open his eyes wide enough to take in the whole room. For a moment he thought that the building had no light, before the sting of smoke informed him otherwise. It seemed to stretch out further than the outside walls had implied, ending in a thick cloud of darkness where wood or rusted iron should have stood. A few guards rested against the walls he could see, emblazoned caps marking them from the same outfit. Harbourmasters, he asserted with some confidence. They seemed drunk on the unsalted fumes of the pub.

"Ah, a stranger comes to Long Landing!"

He was greeted by a man as wide as he was tall, a smile as false as his health plastered over a carpet of angry warts Nate took to be his face. His waddle was only managed by the help of two girls, their bodies swallowed near whole by the arms of the speaker.

"I am Gareth, mayor of Long Landing and master of this here Port Pub," his voice seemed to cut through the smoke and ash of his establishment like a thunderstrike. "It is with a great deal of pride that I welcome you to this here my town and residence. You will find no greater dive to wallow in despair, nor den to celebrate the happy moments of your life, I tell you now."

Nate frowned. That was a more apt name for the place: dive. There had to have been a hundred or two people easy on the wharf alone, too many wastelanders in one place for the Port Pub to be going without patronage. He had been banking on the miasma containing a horde of potential recruits. Killers loved to crowd around drinks in shadowy rooms. And there was no better source of information than a drunk.

"I am surprised that you don't have more customers," he replied in a tone he took for diplomatic.

He thought that he could hear one of the Harbourmasters snigger at that.

"Good eyes, stranger. But it is not even noon yet. Long Landing is home to honest working people I tell you straight. Didn't use to be this way, I wouldn't dare lie. But I've kept the streets clean for the honest folks for fifteen year now, not a word of a lie." He raised one of his arms, allowing the girl beneath to take in a lungful of air that had not been polluted by his own personal brand of cologne. "Are you here for honest work, stranger?"

"I am here for a drink."

Gareth was prodding, testing the viability of a new recruit. Nate was as certain as radiation was deadly. No one got to be fat through honest work, not in a town this size. And it was almost a law that no one ran a town long by being friendly with every stranger who came passing by for a drink. Even the safest places in the wastes needed blood to flow, lest the limbs turn blue or gangrenous. It was those on top who made it so. And those with a pistol strapped to their hip that performed the surgeries.

"Ah yes," he twisted to face a bar that seemed to materialise from the smog itself. "I am sure you would have a thirst, seeing this fine establishment. That and having to spend a trip with our Abbey. A good woman, but any man would need comfort after her companionship. What will it be then? Jiv here has the best stock in the whole Commonwealth, no word of a lie."

"Something cheap and foul," he replied, a brief glance telling him that there were no stools for him nor Gareth.

 _With Abbey_? An honest guess at how he arrived would not have raised any questions. Long Landing was open to the sea, and he had seen enough fellow strangers to make the assumption that most traffic came through the wharf. However, the method by which he had plucked the name of any number of ship captains from air was worrying. _Spies_ , was his initial thought. That made sense for a mayor, his Harbourmasters keeping tabs on everyone coming and going. But to match him to Abbey seemed like something more. _Perhaps she sold me_ … but the thought died before it could take form. There was no way that she would have managed to broadcast her arrival, not without a radio. No, Gareth had another mean. But what it meant for Nate was a mystery.

The barman poured something thick and dark into a stained cup. With an almost careless flourish, he nudged it towards the new arrival. For his mayor, he decanted a pale pink liquid into a glass, slender and tall. A tepid sip assured Nate that his order was indeed worse than the salty brown soup which lapped at the coastline. It could easily have been Jiv's regurgitated breakfast.

"Are you heading anywhere in particular?"

"I had a mind to try Diamond City." He took a mouthful of the broth-like liquid, allowing it to burn its way down. If it had been poisoned, he was definitely going to find out soon enough.

Gareth reached out for his own drink, the girls swaying like grass in a gale at the movement. "A nice place, if you have money to get above the crowds. They call it the Great Green Jewel, for the wall you see. Think big of themselves for a bunch of vagrants if you want my word. What would you be wanting to do there? You don't hold yourself like someone who is going to be begging for a living." His eyes dropped to the pistol that rested against the newcomer's hip. "A score to settle, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," he replied. "I was hoping to find someone to make the trip with. Safety in numbers."

"Oh that is very true, very prudent, though I could tell you were a wise one for choosing this place for your drink. Can never be too trusting when bodysnatchers are about. Just so happens we got a mercenary out of a job who'd probably want the money. Came in a week or two ago with some gang. They seemed to have left him behind." His girls struggled to turn him back to face the empty tables. The near empty tables. "His name is MacCready, claims to be a mayor, but he seems too young for all that."

 _And too skinny_ , Nate added silently. The man didn't look particularly young, old scars cutting up his beard as surely as radiation, but he wasn't in a position to care about arguing the point. "I'll go speak to him then, thank you."

"One other thing." The man gestured to one of the Harbourmasters. The guard in question dragged himself before the mayor and drinking partner with all the good grace of a man ostensibly happy enough to being ordered around by the wet click of a fat man's fingers. "There is a merchant, goes by Hamish, who is going to the Green Jewel as well. Honest man, cuts a good deal for friends. He is all set, but I can't let him go without with some more guards."

Nate almost settled for just accepting the offering with a smile and leaving it at that. The journey ahead was sure to be far too long without getting roped into helping out some brahmin-dragger. Besides, the mayor did not look to be the type of man one should take to relying on for help. Not at least until his method of information gathering was revealed. However his thanks was overtaken by the irresistible urge for more. "And why would he be wanting more guards?"

"Why, he is delivering my wife a present. It's a photo of Long Landing, from before the bombs. Now it doesn't matter how it gets to her, troubles in the rubble being as they are poor Hamish might not make it. I made sure that he keeps the picture on his person, should he have to make a speedy escape. If death forces the two of you to part ways, then I daresay that would be where to look for it. Get it to her, and I'll be sure to have some more work for you."

"Honest work?"

The mayor didn't want to follow that road of the conversation. "Her name is Kyla. Short woman, but striking," a wide tongue moistened his lips. "Makes good men stare, if you understand me. Gorgeous skin, blessed by the sun. She is the only one who wears a pink dress in that city. You'll find her in the upper stands, just ask around. But only hand it over to her. Can't be trusting any of those Green Jewel types these days."

Gareth's new recruit nodded. "I'll be sure to see that the photo gets to her." It could not do him any harm. And if it did, he was in the position to walk away.

The subservient Harbourmaster offered him a tall stack of cards. "Hundred and fifty," he muttered, as if such a number was meant to make him weak at the knees.

"To pay for expenses for the journey," Gareth explained. "You will get your payment for the job once you come back with my Kyla's reply. Oh yes, and there will be more work for you then. Much more."

With the job accepted and his wife's present safe for its transport, the mayor seemed to lose all interest in him, shuffling away with his pink liqueur and female walking sticks. Left to the tender mercy of his owns swamp water, Nate took a final swig of the foul nectar. He made to give the bartender a card, but found his offering rejected. "Business drink is free," he informed Gareth's latest lapdog. Nodding as he came to understand the reasoning, Nate turned away from the bar, leaving the rest of his poison for Jiv to offer to another witless patron.

Sighing, though less out of emotion than an effort to create room in the smog for a lungful of smokeless air, the newcomer approached the mercenary singled out by his employer.

He did possess the look of a mercenary at the least, with the distant glare and closed posture of a killer down to the tee. It was an image Nate had learned to spot as easily as the rising sun. And yet even by the notorious standards of freelance mercenaries, MacCready looked down on his luck. A cap so moth eaten than it was more hole than fabric failed to hide a badly shaven scalp. For a moment Nate hesitated. Was this the mayor's creature? Or, far more troubling, was Gareth having an elaborate joke at his expense? MacCready didn't look drunk, though the possibility of him being so well and thoroughly numb to the effects of alcohol as to manage to present a veneer of sobriety was just as high. On the road, in the rubble, he was going to have to rely on this man. The thought did not fill him with hope.

"Are you going to sit or are you only here looking for a fight?"

Nate sat, oddly bemused. Perhaps he wasn't making a complete mistake.

"Names MacCready, though I suppose you knew that, judging from our fair mayor's want for gossiping. Looking for a hired gun I take it?"

 _He isn't drunk at least_ , Nate reasoned. Those eyes were piercing even in the gloom. "I am going to Diamond City, tagging along with a trader. Could use another gun."

The mercenary nodded, though from his expression the newcomer could tell that it wasn't in outright acceptance of his new mission. _Was that a good sign_? Taking on the job without hesitation would have been a red flag for sure. And yet Nate could only wonder.

"Fifty cards for a one way trip, upfront." He paused, turning to look over his shoulder at invisible eavesdroppers. "I will do torture but if you are looking for someone to start up a gang of slavers, you can find yourself someone else."

 _Well this is easy_ , he reasoned. Though perhaps too easy. "Done."

Nate's unwillingness to barter a lower price seemed to please MacCready. "Alright then, you have yourself a second gun. I don't need anything else, so let's go find this caravan of yours."

They found Hamish where all traders end up when their caravan is delayed by a town's mayor: sitting amidst the shit of their brahmin. He was kept company by two other men who could only have been his guards, cleaning rifles that looked like they held together on the basis of equal parts twine and juvenile hope.

 _No_ , he found himself correcting, _not men_.

"He is using children?" Nate found himself asking, incredulous. For a moment he thought that he could feel Gareth's smile behind him.

One of them looked no older than fifteen, all oversized clothing and abrupt angles. The other was barely taller than her rifle. Together they had the mass of half a grown man.

"Anyone can pull a trigger," his new-made companion replied, a knowing smile on his face. "And adults have a tendency towards inflating their egos when it comes to settling the prices of their service. Everyone learns to shoot well enough young or old."

Before he could find anything to say in response, Nate found himself before the trader. Hamish certainly wasn't much to look at either, all beady eyes and slumped shoulders, wrapped up in a faded leather cloak. A dangerous man he certainly was not.

"Can I help you?" Maybe he tried to sound tough - as if sitting on a throne of crap could come across as naturally threatening - but Nate found himself assuming that the squeak was of genuine concern for his well being. And that was strange.

"I heard that you were off to Diamond City." He resisted the urge to look over at the man's escort. "We were hoping that you had a place for us."

The trader hesitated before his answer, gobbing like one of the fish Abbey had caught in their northern journey here. He was not someone that Nate would have entrusted a loved one's gift to. No, he looked weak, vulnerable. _Something that I'll have to worry about moving forward_ , he accepted. But having an inferior paymaster did have its benefits.

"Oh, did Mayor Gareth send you? What a man. He promised me some extra help not an hour ago and here you are." He rose like some ponderous leaf, pushing against the soft breeze with all of his might.

"We are good to go as soon as you are."

"Very good. Very good. Payment is double: ten cards for the trip, but you already knew that."

 _Idiot_. Nate turned to face his own hired help, whose professionalism did not extend to resisting a laugh at the naivete of his employer. He was someone to watch. If he was happy enough to fleece the unwitting, slaver or not, he was someone happy enough to go all in when another offer presented itself. Maybe that line about slavery was just icing.

"I am ready on this side. Let's get to it."

Long Landing ended at a wall of rubble and driftwood, rising to the height of two men and at least as thick. Harbourmasters, an assortment of weapons in hand, clustered around its only gate like flies to a wound. A momentary discussion between Gareth's men and Hamish saw the exit cleared for them. Beyond the wooden stakes which marked the boundary of Long Landing, the city lay dead. The buildings had been turned to rubble in the war, giving way to rising dunes of blasted concrete and sloping valleys of shattered glass. It was a grey ocean, covered in a fleet of skeletons. Rising above it all: the spires, tall and radiating in their glory. For a moment, a brief second as his eyes adjusted to newfound light, the pillars of human memory looked down at him with faces leering at his mortality. _To Sanctuary_ , he promised the note. _To my new life_.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The rubble lay like heavy snow, dunes of twisted metal and crumbling rock rising and falling and rising again in an endless cycle before him. Looking around, at the streets signs turned grey and red, and vehicles now more metal cobwebs than whole husks, he could almost forget that people had once scrambled to live here. Not just a handful, or even the thousand or two that now clustered in their towns, but tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands even, if the stories spun by muties were to be believed. They had been crammed into every square inch of this concrete sea, living a life happy and joyful and without the fear of hunger and disease, allowed the luxury of waking up each and every morning without the fear of it being the last.

 _They feared the bomb_ , he recalled dimly, his boot grazing a shadowy mark on the ground. Or at the least they had understood why they should have been terrified of it. A great power that only the sun could match, harnessed by men who had only dark thoughts in place of their humanity. _Not that having their humanity would have changed anything_ , he reflected dispassionately. Want was the driving force of everything, might its vessel. Just because they wouldn't have wanted the world to end completely did not mean that they would have been willing to suffer in a world where they had to put aside their power and serve another. It was the same no matter how many people called you leader.

"You spot something?" Hamish's voice was high, higher than any calm soul would be able to match. As a companion he was a fearful creature, jumping at every shadow as if it were out to get him personally. Perhaps he was right. Maybe the shadows were hungry. But if so, then they were out for every living thing equally. That was a less terrifying thought, given that all living things was out to get them too.

"No," Nate replied, realising that he had fallen behind. Picking up the pace, he forced himself to acknowledge for the hundredth time the company he was keeping. For a caravan they were a pathetic thing: a single pack beast to pull a cart that was scarce big enough to carry a man, and five caravaners who looked more like Dustplain scavs than killers.

He could imagine what they looked to a raider, peering down at them with bloodshot eyes from their hidden alcoves. They would see easy meat. Target practice. It was what he saw, following on a few feet apart from his new companions. The one thing that could stop a raider from seeing the same had to be the comedown from whatever poison they had coursing through their veins. Only then, with their reasoning so messed up that they saw an army in place of children, was there any hope of them being allowed to make their journey unmolested.

That could either be a blessing, or it meant their deaths. There was no middle ground to be had. Not when they were in the shifting maze of the rubble of the old world. Though MacCready and Hamish both seemed to have taken their pathetic grouping as a positive, Nate was less inclined to support their reasoning. His experience lent towards raiders not following the normal conventions of logic most people abided by. Even juiced up, they would have a go at them, if only to quieten the voices in their head.

"You don't look like one of the regulars," the taller kid guardsman said with the certainty of a grandfather. "Come far?"

"A few days sailing from the south, so no."

It was as much a warning as it was an answer. Most companions he had ever would have accepted his refusal for what it was and dropped the subject. There were better, safer, topics to discuss than a stranger's past. History had a way of bringing back all the wrong stories for retelling. However it did not satisfy the boy. Indeed, it only seemed to egg on his curiosity.

"Why you come to the Commonwealth?"

"Don't listen to him, mista," the female guard declared, appearing at their side.

The boy turned to his partner, a child who had made the erroneous choice to carry around a weapon that she had no chance of using with any sort of skill. And because of it, her rifle-induced waddle was something else. _Siblings_ , Nate took them for, more out of personal hope than any visual evidence. That or the boy had found compassion in the grey ocean before them, enough to look out for a defenseless little girl, sharing what little he had with a stranger who could just have easily been preparing to gut him in his sleep. No, they had to be siblings.

"Sandy, eyes on Dinky," the boy commanded, his eyes returning to study their adult companion, still expecting an answer that he would find acceptable.

"A letter," Nate finally said, offering the words with a frown, hoping against hope that such a benign object would deter him from filling the air with his voice. No one read other's letters, nor tried to pry out the contents in conversation. That was as much a law as the sun rising in the morning.

"From someone you know?"

"You can't get letters from someone if they don't know you, shithead," the girl Sandy called out as she moved up alongside the brahmin. "How would the traders know to give it to you?"

Nate heard MacCready laugh at the girl's outburst, startling their merchant companion. Instead of turning the boy's attention towards the others, it only seemed to galvanise him towards doubling down on his investigation. His eyes seemed to bore into Nate, two lasers searing into his flesh, or as near to it as a child's eyes could get. It was almost as if he could read the older man's thoughts. If he could read at all. It wasn't like kids surviving by working caravan duty had a time for sitting down with a book.

"The letter from someone you know?"

 _No_. "Yes."

"What does it say?"

"Nothing that concerns you," Nate replied with a tone of dismissal, gesturing for the boy to join his sister. He had already said enough that anyone else would have been satisfied. Yet his temporary aide did not strike him as someone who knew to read people, nor to understand when he was becoming a nuisance.

Expectantly, he glanced to acknowledge that it was not good enough of an answer for the youth, who had already opened his mouth to bark out another inane question. He did not seem to want to drop it, even as his companion became visibly angry at his pushing. Maybe he was simply bored. That was a benign enough reason, if poor. But there were other reasons. Reasons that put the newcomer on edge.

"Get back to your sister," he said, cutting off the kid before he got pushed too far. "And keep your eyes on the road."

The boy almost refused, visibly bristling at the words as if anything said had been some physical assault on his person. He got that look in his eyes, one that older, tougher men could use to get their own way. On him they just glistened, as if holding back tears.

"Gary, come here man."

It was MacCready. He raised his hand, motioning for Gary to come to his side when the boy seemed set on refusing. There was something about the way the older mercenary stood that told them that he would not ask again. Surprisingly, the boy could see that too.

"We'll speak later," he promised Nate, as if that was a good deed worthy of thanks.

Leaving him to the silent contemplation of his duty of bringing up the rear of their paltry caravan, Gary sauntered forward, passing his sister and Hamish with the grace of an injured molerat. Less, if Nate wasn't being so generous.

"Let's keep our heads," Hamish muttered, his voice unable to carry on the breeze. "We got a while to go yet."

After the first hour of their trip Hamish had revealed his map of the Commonwealth, eager to explain why it was that the journey would take the best part of the daylight they had left for them to walk. Nate fell for the rookie error of pointing out that they could try the straight path from Long Harbour to Diamond City, and "be there in an hour."

With the condescending sigh only a parent could match, Hamish set about to teach his new pupil about the state of the rubble ocean they were wading through. He gestured to a series of dark marks on his map, explaining that everything beyond it was gang territory. "And not the kind you can buy off with any amount of money."

So instead of the most efficient scramble from walled town to walled town they shuffled along like snakes, meandering from one shadowy valley to the next. He imagined that their journey looked like a treasure hunt to the birds circling overhead, the party moving from one sharp angle to the next, taking five steps to the side for every one they put towards their destination.

But Nate didn't have to be argued with to accept that the trader had far more knowledge about the land they were traipsing through. If Hamish had the good sense enough to survive the numerous trips necessary in his line of employment, then he was surely a better judge for their route than a newcomer. Didn't mean that he had to like it. Not at all. He had managed fine enough on his own up until this point, but as it stood he had the mayor of Long Harbour to please. And as it was with men like him, a pleased mayor was a generous man. If things didn't work out with Sanctuary, he would need the fall back offered by the opportunities of happy mayors.

The path they were following, more a depression in the dust than anything resembling a trail, suddenly veered to the left. Not the right way, Nate noted, for the hundredth time. He could still hear the soft crash of the ocean waves, and the clicking of mirelurk talons. Beyond it was the soft murmur of civilisation, though the winds could have carried it from behind or beyond. Yet he stayed quiet, nursing his misgivings as well as any wastelander. Instead he turned his eyes to their new surroundings, as if daring the beasts lurking beyond his sight to try him.

The skeleton shapes of buildings rose like tombstones on either side of their path, like a forest of grey and black. Lichen had begun to spread across the bones, looking more akin to a green blanket carelessly thrown upon the corpses than something grown. He could see passing glimpses of what lay within them. There, a skull half submerged in a hill of bones. And there, a rat twice the size of his hand, dead. The rodent had died with its fangs sunk into an outcrop of mushrooms which had blossomed from the rotten remains of a couch. He caught himself smiling at the sight. He had seen wastelanders twice his age make the same mistake.

Even as his eyes ran over the darkened innards of the corpse buildings, Nate allowed himself to breathe a little slower. No guns, old or new. No cloth scraps caught on exposed wire. Though the 'wealth had promised a life of plenty, he was only seeing death, and it brought a soft smile to his face. Rats and bones he could deal with. It was the living that were the problem.

Before too long they came to a sign, standing solitary in what passed for a road. MacCready, somewhat eagerly, approached the post. Dismissing the throaty croak that was Hamish's warning of the shadows out to get him, the mercenary walked forward with all the confidence of a man out for blood. He stopped bare inches from the sign, head swiftly turning to assess the wasteland around them.

"Raiders," he said by way of explanation as his fellows joined him. "Seems they have marked out their territory."

"How nice of them," Nate replied, only half in mockery. He turned to their paymaster, who had decided that it was time to put himself forward and look at the sign for his own observations. "What we doing Hamish?"

"We are gonna go through," Sandy answered before the merchant could dissipate the silence with his own voice. "This wasn't here when we came through the last time."

She sounded confident for a child. Perhaps too confident. A lot of people would tell Nate that such confidence betrayed treachery, that the girl had a deal with whoever had staked the post. Experience, however, always pointed towards ignorance. That was a far bigger thing to be scared of. At least a traitor knew what they were getting themselves into.

Ignorance could be benign enough, helpful even. Ignorance of the poison coursing through your veins, or the sniper already letting out his breath for the shot, meant you died with a bit of dignity, without fear. But ignorance of a preventative fatality, of the threat posed by starving junkies with assault rifles, was an unforgivable sin. Ignorance didn't always just get you killed. It got the people around you killed. And in this instance, Nate had to count himself as one of those people.

"What we doing Hamish?" Nate repeated, toying with the holster of his pistol.

The man looked set to wallow in his own daemons, unable to draw his eyes away from the glistening blood that had been used to paint a flamboyant rune on the metal. His jaw swung intermediately, teasing the formation of words. But as it happened, none seemed to spill out, even accidentally.

"There another way round?"

"Na," Gary informed them. "Not unless we want to start marching through molerat hunting grounds."

He said it breezily enough, as if tracking through predator territory was something that a child could do easily. No, the way he said it made the threat sound tangible, a death sentence as sure as if they were to walk in front of a firing squad. Looking at his fellow travellers, Nate understood that the child's false bravado did not dispel the nature of his words. They were growing tight, the idea of traipsing through a knowingly hostile path having the same effect on them as it did on him. That settled it. Better to gamble for safety than accept a certainty of injury.

"Alright then," Nate declared, glancing up to assess how much light they still had. "Let's get Dinky moving."

Though Hamish was slow to find his normal stride, MacCready and the two children were already stomping into the raider territory with a spring to their steps. For a moment Nate almost reached out to the caravan master, ready to jolt him into action. But the man reached deep and found some hidden courage. With an audible sigh, he took a step.

 _Click_.

 _Beep_.


End file.
